Amazon is proposing that a pristine slice of airspace above the world's cities and suburbs should be set aside for the deployment of high-speed aerial drones capable of flying robotically with virtually no human interference.

The retail giant has taken the next step in its ambition to deliver packages via drone within 30 minutes by setting out in greater detail than ever before its vision for the future of robotic flight. It envisages that within the next 10 years hundreds of thousands of small drones- not all of them Amazon's or devoted to delivery- will be tearing across the skies every day largely under their own automated control.